Anyone who knows me knows that I’m apt to try my hand at just about any minutiae-driven hobby. From astrophotography to aquascaping to insect taxidermy, my adult life is riddled with the detritus of myriad intellectual deep dives. Some people measure life as a series of cars or dogs; I measure mine by the steady accumulation of obscure hobbies. Some represent passing interests, like rehydrating and mounting insects, while others, like astrophotography, have staying power.
I recently had the opportunity to join a guided steelhead flyfishing trip on the Trinity River in Northern California with Cal Trout and Dave Neal of Reel Adventures. I have great news: I think I found a “perfect fit” hobby*. For a few years, a good friend has tried to get me into fly fishing, but until now I’d only shown mild interest. It seemed needlessly challenging and complex, with its advanced casting techniques and rigging. But after a weekend on the Trinity, I’m totally… ugh… hooked.
Although I am a total beginner, please enjoy this list of reasons why I think fly fishing is the greatest sport of all time:
1. You Hunt Trout in the Most Complicated Way Possible
The most effective (and illegal) way to catch fish is to use dynamite. Nets and weirs are slightly less simple but still quite successful. Traditional trout rigs on spin reels are a bit more challenging but essentially mindless. Fly fishing, however, is the art of using all of your intellectual and physical prowess to trick a trout into eating a fake insect that you may or may not have made yourself, then fighting and landing it on the most fragile apparatus imaginable.
Trout won’t eat just any fake insect you throw at them, though. They’re primed to eat more of what they’ve been eating lately, so you have to get good at knowing what types of food are available on a given day or time. They also don’t give a shit about something that looks like a mayfly nymph if it moves like it’s attached to a string, especially if they’ve been feasting on caddisfly pupae all morning.
So the goal is to figure out what’s being served up that day and feed the trout what they expect in the way they expect it.
Thankfully, trout mostly expect bugs, so…
2. You Have to Know About Insect Identification, Behavior, and Life Cycles
When do midges hatch in this river? What do the trout around here eat from 8-10AM? Are those mayflies hatching or caddisflies migrating upriver? Gosh, time to study!
As a total novice, I hope this part of the hobby is as fulfilling as it seems. From the absurd number of videos I’ve watched since my first and only fly fishing trip, I’ve gleaned there are several types of fly fishers. Some are attracted to the rhythm, meditation, and technique of casting, while others like the thrill of the fight. Many, though, seem hopelessly obsessed with insects and river ecology. Experienced fly fishers seem to care about what’s been hatching lately. They grab a handful of mud, catch some insects flying overhead, and intuit what flies they should choose for a given stretch of river. Some apparently bring binoculars to get a better look at bugs in the distance. When they see a river, they see the whole ecosystem, from algae to bugs to fish to birds. They know why today is different than yesterday, and change their approach accordingly. It may not result in more fish, but I want to be in that category, please.
I assume it’ll be years before I understand what’s really important (probably not fly fishing), but something tells me this skill flows from astute observation, knowledge of local ecology, and technique. I’d love to get good enough at this part of the hobby to be successful on a new stretch of river using only my experience and perception. I’m sure nothing is as helpful as talking with local guides and shop owners, though.
3. You Have to Know About Trout Psychology and Fluid Dynamics
You can’t catch a trout that’s not there. Thankfully, the devoted have thought a lot about what trout like to do with their time. Several trout-behavior documentaries into this rabbit hole, I am starting to appreciate how their minds work. Trout are lazy as Hell and use variations in current to maintain their position rather than by swimming; their body habitus and fin arrangement evolved to make this super-easy for them. The goal is to stay in one place and let food come to them while using as little energy as possible. This means they often spend time behind rocks or at an interface between slow- and fast-moving water. They see the world as though staring down the business end of a conveyor belt, and only move to catch a morsel headed their way. It’s like they live inside an Atari game.
The angler identifies which areas of a stretch of river should hold trout, then tries to get the fly on the conveyor belt before the trout can see it while making sure it drifts at the same rate, direction, and depth as the rest of the food. This sounds like it should be easy, but it’s not, because…
4. You Have to Get Good at Casting and Managing a Fly Line
Have you ever seen people fly fish in the movies and wonder how they learn such beautiful techniques? Turns out you learn by tangling yourself and everything around you in bright yellow fishing line and waiting for your patient instructor to untangle it so you can wreck it all again.
At first this seems purely masochistic, but the whole point is to throw something very light very far. You can’t throw a tiny feather more than a foot, but attach it to a whip and you’re in business. That’s how casting works. Problem is that trout are afraid of whips, so you have to do it in a way that doesn’t scare the fish. What’s more, it’s pretty hard to make a feather float as though it’s not attached to anything, especially while the whole thing drifts down a dynamic river. This forms the basis of casting skill and the undertone for my guide’s well-camouflaged frustration.
5. You Get to Practice Tying Knots
Knots, guys. Lots of knots.
As of this writing I lack the skill, knowledge, and muscle memory to effectively pretend to be a bug, and so am limited in the types of fishing I can do. Luckily for me on this first trip, we fished for steelhead with the most basic setup and cast possible (flop casting a tandem nymph rig from a boat). Steelhead are notoriously hard to find and catch, yet are some of the most prized trout in the world for their size, rarity, and tendency to fight.
Meanwhile my guide, Dave, masterfully maneuvered me into the best spots, setting up my rig and pointing out exactly where to cast. Some spots weren’t good that day because of the angle of the sun or because of the water level. Others were perfect because the flow was just right. When I screwed up, he’d move the boat to adjust for my failures. By the end, I sensed that he may actually enjoy the challenge of fishing without ever touching a rod; he uses the boat and his words to get clients to do a reasonable impression of an insect. But it was clear that I didn’t know how good I had it. He told me that my presence on a steelhead trip on the Trinity River was akin to “Showing up at Pebble Beach without knowing a thing about golf. At least you can enjoy the scenery.”
Hopefully next time I’m on my game, at least in the bug department.
* Disclaimer: I’ve said this about every hobby I’ve ever picked up.